#3P. PLANNING – POLITICAL

#3PPLANNING
Before entering the political strategy overview we should take into account the following factors:

  • Campaigns are a #marketing actions not only a communications act
  • The politics monster is totally different from the commercial one
  • There’s never enough time
  • The amount of activities is intense
  • Disorganization is immense
  • People are all “blah blah blah” and nil “gloo gloo gloo”
  • Personal interests reign
  • The internal fights are bloodier
  • The sole purpose is to win
  • All campaigns are different

After placing the political chip in your mind, lets leave the bone and start chewing the meat. First you must define a reliable campaign team formed in relation to fulfill the objectives and not by nepotism or friendship.

After getting to know yours and your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses in the previous 2Ps it’s time to define the GRAND STRATEGY, what is your true purpose and how are you expecting to accomplish it. To strategize you should simplify the complex, find how to be efficient in the use of resources; concentrate only on those activities that will make you win the elections, specify the crucial maneuvers, learn if you’re a leader for sure and master how you’ll surprise humanity.

Design your real target markets and work according to them: our hard vote must de motivated and turned into evangelists. Delimit precisely what vote can be moved and which can’t; you must internalize that the undecided voters are not the same as the apathetic ones and that the latter are divided in two: those who understand politics and the ones that don’t actually care about the indicated issues (that are the majority).

The percentage of floating, undecided, or ambivalent voters, pick your choice of adjective, are much less than what we believe. There are a number of apathetic voters that can make a difference, but they need a significant trigger to do so.

Analyze why voters support “X” party or candidate. Do they vote motivated by fear or they feel the need to punish somebody or as a result of their proposals, or “cause their cute”, or hatred, or pressures, etc.

Learn among other issues, why will people vote for you? How can you change or promote what they recognise of your person or party? What pleases or displeases the people? How many global votes are needed to win and the amount needed in each specific area? Which media can improve the reach of the messages to the specific targets? How to intensify brand penetration? How and where can you acquire the necessary funding? What is your expense forecast?

Project where, how and when are you going to receive attacks. Demarcate whom, how, when, and with what frequency you should attack. Establish whether it is best to attack directly or by the flanks. Determine how to decrease your competitor’s votes, and the way to slash the umbilical cord where they develop their muscle. The attack that impacts more strongly is the truth. Remember the lie only lasts until it hits the wall of truthfulness.

Also analyze what counter strategies your opponents will manufacture, how to paralyse the enemy within the political party, what intelligence structure should be developed and how it should operate to always be two steps ahead of your opponents. Project your strategies so you never walk into your opponent’s court and to obligate them fall into yours, anticipate the political ambient, don’t plunge in their traps, learn to distinguish between what’s a crisis and what’s not.

It’s in this “P” where you have to define your donors and the strategies to get their contributions to accomplish the realistic objectives predetermined before.

If you apply what’s written above, you’re already two steps ahead of your competitors.

MarketingMINT: telling the truth is not negative campaigning

#SeeYaSoonBaboons
@jclaviles
jclaviles@mint.com.sv